When it comes to carrying out a successful book launch, in this digital world of ours, authors often tend to connect with their readers without leaving the comfort of their homes. But, even though virtual communication with your audience can help you achieve a successful book launch, it cannot replace the physical experience of sharing your book and communicating with a room full of fans and readers. Successful book launches and signings help you build up your credibility and platform as an author and allow you to get to know your readers in real life. An additional benefit from conducting a book launch is that your readers could help you increase your audience by spreading the word through social media. Below, you will find a few tips on how to make your book launch successful, and how to ensure you get the most benefits of it.
1. Find the right venue
When picking the venue, it’s important to really think about the location where you want to launch your book. It needs to be easily accessible through public transportation such as trains, buses or cars, which is why it is preferable to hold your book launch in a largely populated and urbanized area. Depending on the topic of your book, you can try to launch the book in a café, restaurant, museum, church, art gallery etc., instead of the usual book launches in libraries, book stores or book fairs. A café will provide you with a more relaxed atmosphere to interact with your readers, and you might end up attracting other patrons of the café. A book that focuses on religion will get more attention if the launch occurs in a church instead of a library, and art galleries and museums are the perfect location for mystery books that revolve around historical artifacts.
2. Timely promotion
Once you’ve chosen the venue, date and time for the book launch, you will need to start promoting the event at least three to four weeks in advance. Start sending out newsletters and emails to your friends at least a month before the event – and remember, a dry announcement will only spread the word, but not create interest. Make your newsletters and emails fun and attractive. You can create this by describing your plans for the event, plans that need to be entertaining. In a way, make your emails and newsletter the introduction to the entertaining show that your book launch will be. Additionally, you will need to promote the book launch on your social media profiles – linking the official announcement for the event on your website or blog. However, make sure you don’t exceed the patience of your readers by overflowing their newsfeeds. Two weeks before the event is the optimal time to start posting about it on social media, but moderately. Your post about the book launch should be interspersed with your usual author posts, but make sure you send out a reminder a week before and the day before it, so people wouldn’t forget about the date.
3. Be punctual and dedicated
When the big day comes, make sure you arrive at least one hour, more or less, before the event starts. This will give you enough time to prepare and go over the activities you have planned for the event, both for yourself and your readers. Your books should always be visible to the audience, upfront, so when you read, your books are right there for people to look at them. You should find somebody, maybe a friend with good photography skills, to take pictures and videos of the event. You can also have a food bar or refreshment bar after the book launch and signing, because who doesn’t want free food and drinks?
4. Focus on your audience
Finally, once the big event starts, you should probably make the reading part be as short as possible, lasting no longer than twenty minutes. Even if the crowd loves your book already, no one wants to sit and listen to you reading for two or more hours. Your readers will be interested in you as a writer, and will want to know what inspired you to write the book, and how you come up with your ideas, story lines as well as spoilers for future books. This gives you the perfect opportunity to connect with your audience by sharing a funny story relating to the book. For the rest of the book launch, maybe you can have a close friend start up some questions about the book to break the ice, so the rest of the audience can break out of their shells and ask questions too. Also, don’t forget to always smile to your readers, and be kind when answering their questions. Remember, some of them might be just as nervous as you are to speak in front a lot of people.
5. Brag about the event on social media
After the book launch, regardless of how it went or how many people actually showed up, you should always spread the word on social media of how amazing and successful your book signing went. You should post a few pictures of the event, and also thank everyone for taking time from their busy lives to come. Make it look like you had so much fun so that the people who didn’t come, for various reasons, will most likely promise to come to your next book launch or book signing. This way, you’re setting yourself up as a writer, step by step, and your next book launch will always be more successful than the previous one.
Image credit: Get Noticed on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0
Georgina Roy wants to live in a world filled with magic. As an art student, she’s moonlighting as a writer and is content to fill notebooks and sketchbooks with magical creatures and amazing new worlds. When she is not at school, or scribbling away in a notebook, you can usually find her curled up, reading a good urban fantasy novel, or writing on her laptop, trying to create her own.